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Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2018, Part 1

Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville
Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada
May 17-18, 2018
Keeping a middle-aged festival such as the Festival International de Musique Actualle de Victoriaville fresh and relevant is a challenge, but the program for this year's 34th edition of FIMAV assembled by artistic director Michel Levasseur had something more of an avant-garde and international flavor than we have seen in recent years. Prominent in the schedule are Asian musicians and Asian-influenced music as well as a large number of female performers, making this year's edition one of the most highly anticipated of the last twenty years.
As usual, the opening evening's menu of three concerts featured musicians from Canada and Quebec, starting with a double concert of the music of Montreal-based composer Walter Boudreau, an icon in the world of contemporary classical movement for the last half century and the artistic director and principal conductor of the Ensemble de la Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) since 1988. The first part of the program was a performance of "Paix," one of Boudreau's first major compositions, by a group of young musicians called 333ToutArtBel, while the second featured Boudreau conducting the SMCQ in a performance of "Solaris (Incantations VIII-IXh), a composition from 2012-13 in the new concert hall of Victoriaville's cultural center. The first piece showed the obvious influence of

Frank Zappa
guitar, electric1940 - 1993
The second concert was a project by Taiwanese-Canadian musician and composer Lan Tung, who brought together a group of Taiwanese musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments with members of the Vancouver avant-garde scene such as

Ron Samworth
guitarThe final big group show of Thursday was a midnight performance by the Montreal ensemble David and the Mountain, a project led by drummer, guitarist, composer, scene-maker David Douglas Dion. The performance started compellingly enough but the long middle section of guitar feedback tried the patience.
Friday's program began at the usual 1 p.m. in the beautiful Eglise St-Christophe d'Arthabaska with a solo voice and viola performance by the Swiss artist

Charlotte Hug
violaFriday afternoon's 5 p.m. concert in the Colisee B of Victoriaville's hockey arena was the world premiere of a trio comprised of " data-original-title="" title="">Malcolm Goldstein on violin, Rainer Weins on guitar and thumb piano, and Liu Fang on pipa. Goldstein and Weins have collaborated off and on for many years, and Goldstein and Fang have been playing together in the past decade, but this was the first time that the trio had played publicly. This performance felt like an intimate encounter of close friends, delicately balanced, with Fang playing the foil between Goldstein and Weins.
The 8 and 10 o'clock concerts on Friday were presentations by old friends of the festival, the

Rova Saxophone Quartet
saxophone
William Parker
bassb.1952

Jon Raskin
saxophone, baritoneb.1954

Larry Ochs
saxophoneb.1949

Steve Adams
saxophone, alto
Bruce Ackley
saxophone, soprano
Hamid Drake
drumsb.1955

Dave Burrell
pianob.1940

Cooper-Moore
pianob.1946

Rob Brown
saxophone, altob.1962
Friday's midnight show was the Swiss trio " data-original-title="" title="">Schnellertollermeier, a kind of minimalist power trio of guitar (" data-original-title="" title="">Manuel Troller), bass (" data-original-title="" title="">Andi Schnellmann), and drums (" data-original-title="" title="">David Meier), whose tense, insistent rhythms were delivered at high volume, a fine way to kick the festival towards the Saturday and Sunday part of the schedule, which will feature a number of loud and abrasive (I mean that in a good way, of course) performances. You can read my festival wrap-up here in a couple of days.
Tags
Live Reviews
Mike Chamberlain
Canada
Montreal
Walter Boudreau
Lan Tung
Ron Samworth
J.P. Carter
David Douglas Dion
Charlotte Hug
Malcolm Goldstein
Rainer Weins
Liu Fang
Rova Saxophone Quartet
William Parker
In Order to Survive
Jon Raskin
Larry Ochs
Steve Adams
Bruce Ackley
Hamid Drake
dave burrell
Cooper-Moore
Rob Brown
Schnellertollermeier
Manuel Troller
Andi Schnellmann
David Meier
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